Cover not available
Article published In:
Language Ecology
Vol. 1:2 (2017) ► pp.158–184

On Sinitic influence on Macanese

Focus on indirect causation

| University of Milano-Bicocca

Macanese, the near-extinct Portuguese creole of Macao, is an understudied contact language with strong Malayo-Portuguese features. It is also characterised by Sinitic influence, which however has sometimes been downplayed in the literature (see Ansaldo and Matthews 2004). In this paper, I argue that a distinctive element of Macanese vis-à-vis other Asian Portuguese Creoles is the stronger role of Sinitic in its “typological matrix” (Ansaldo 2004, 2009). Sinitic influence on Macanese has already been invoked to account e.g. for reduplication (Ansaldo and Matthews 2004); however, little research on multi-verb constructions has been conducted so far. The main object of my study comprise constructions expressing indirect causation, and I focus on the chomá [call]-NP-VP pattern. I argue that, whereas in other Asian Portuguese Creoles the syntax of indirect causatives appears to be modelled mainly on Malay or on Indian substrate languages, for Macanese the model is clearly Sinitic.

Keywords: multi-verb constructions, Macanese, indirect causation, feature pool, typological matrix, contact-induced grammaticalisation, Asian Portuguese creoles
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.A short history of Macanese and of its ecology
  • 3.Multi-verb constructions and the chomá-NP-VP pattern
  • 4.Language contact, grammaticalisation and the typological matrix of Macanese
  • 5.Summary and conclusions
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • References
Published online: 12 January 2018
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/le.1.2.03arc
References

Primary sources

Ferreira, José Dos Santos
1967 Macau Sã Assi: Versos e prosas no dialecto macaense e breve vocabulario. Macau: Tipografia da Missão do Padroado.Google Scholar
1973 Qui-nova, Chencho: Obra no dialecto macaense – prosa e poesia – com breve vocabulário. Macau: Tipografia da Missão do Padroado.Google Scholar
Melo, Francisco Manuel
1995[1650] Tácito Português: Vida, morte, dittos e feitos de el Rey Dom João IV de Portugal. Lisbon: Livraria Sá da Costa Editora.Google Scholar
Pereira, José F. M.
1899–1901 Ta-Ssi-Yang-Kuo: Archivos e annaes do Extremo-Oriente Portuguez. Lisbon: Bertrand.Google Scholar
Pinharanda Nunes, Mário Ruí Lima
2007 Corpus of Spoken Macanese. Macao: University of Macau.Google Scholar
Aboh, Enoch and Umberto Ansaldo
2007 The role of typology in language creation: A descriptive take. In Umberto Ansaldo, Stephen Matthews and Lisa Lim, eds. Deconstructing Creole. Amsterdam-Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 39–66. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Aikhenvald, Alexandra Y.
2006 Serial verb constructions in typological perspective. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and Robert M. W. Dixon, eds. Serial Verb Constructions. A Cross-Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1–68.Google Scholar
2011 Multi-verb constructions: setting the scene. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and Peter Muysken, eds. Multi-Verb Constructions. A View from the Americas. Leiden: Brill. 1–26. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ameka, Felix
2003 The multiverb constructions in a West-African areal typological perspective. In Proceedings of TROSS 03. Available online at [URL].
Ansaldo, Umberto and Hugo Cardoso
2009 Introduction. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 8(2): 3–10. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ansaldo, Umberto and Stephen Matthews
2004 The origins of Macanese reduplication. In Geneviève Escure and Armin Schwegler, eds. Creoles, Contact and Language Change. Linguistic and Social Implications. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 1–20. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ansaldo, Umberto
2004 The evolution of Singapore English: Finding the matrix. In Lisa Lim, ed. Singapore English: A Grammatical Description. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 127–149. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009 Contact Languages: Ecology and Evolution in Asia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Arana-Ward, Marie
1977 A Synchronic and Diachronic Investigation of Macanese. MA dissertation. University of Hong Kong.Google Scholar
Batalha, Graciette
2000[1953] Aspectos da syntaxe macaense. Mosaico 39–40: 125–131.Google Scholar
Baxter, Alan Norman
1988 A Grammar of Kristang (Malacca Creole Portuguese). Canberra: Australian National University.Google Scholar
1996 Portuguese and Creole Portuguese in the Pacific and Western Pacific Rim. In Stephen A. Wurm, Peter Mühlhäusler and Darrell T. Tryon, eds. Atlas of Languages of Intercultural Communication in the Pacific, Asia and the Americas, vol. 11. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 299–338. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009a Causative and facilitative serial verbs in Asian Ibero-Romance creoles − A convergence of substrate and superstrate systems? Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 8(2): 65–90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2009b O português em Macau: contacto e assimilação. In Ana M. Carvalho, ed. Português em Contato. Frankfurt/ Madrid: Vervuert/ Iberoamericana. 277–312.Google Scholar
Cabreros, Peter
2003 Macao Patois words in English. Review of Culture 51: 126–151.Google Scholar
Cardoso, Hugo
2012 Luso-Asian comparatives in comparison. In Hugo Cardoso, Alan Norman Baxter and Mário Pinharanda Nunes, eds. Ibero-Asian Creoles: Comparative Perspectives. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 82–123. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chang, Li-li
2006 漢語使役句表被動的語義發展. Language and Linguistics 7(1): 139–174.Google Scholar
Chao, Yuen Ren
1968 A Grammar of Spoken Chinese. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Chappell, Hilary and Alain Peyraube
2006 The diachronic syntax of causative structures in Early Modern Southern Min. In Dah-An Ho, ed. Festschrift for Ting Pang-Hsin. Taipei: Academia Sinica. 973–1011.Google Scholar
Chen, I-Hsuen
2009 Causative Variants and Related Passives in Southern Min: A Case Study of Grammaticalization. MA dissertation. National Tsing Hua University.Google Scholar
Cheung, Samuel H.
2007 香港粵語語法的研究. Hong Kong: The Chinese University Press.Google Scholar
Clancy Clements, Joseph
2000 Evidência para a existência dum pidgin português asiático. In Ernesto D’Andrade, Dulce Pereira and Maria Antónia Mota, eds. Actas do colóquio sobre Crioulos de base lexical Portuguesa. Braga: Associação Portuguesa de Linguística. 185–200.Google Scholar
2009 The Linguistic Legacy of Spanish and Portuguese: Colonial Expansion and Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cloutier, Robert A.
2013 *haitan in Gothic and Old English. In Gabriele Diewald, Leena Kahlas-Tarkka and Ilse Wischer, eds. Comparative Studies in Early Germanic Languages: With a Focus on Verbal Categories. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 17–40. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Evans, Nicholas and David Wilkins
2000 In the mind’s ear: The semantic extensions of perception verbs in Australian languages. Language 76(3): 546–592. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ferreira, José Dos Santos
1978 Papiá Cristám di Macau. Macau: Tipografia da Missão do Padroado.Google Scholar
Heine, Bernd and Tania Kuteva
2002 World Lexicon of Grammaticalization. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Heine, Bernd, Ulrike Claudi and Friederike Hünnemeyer
1991 Grammaticalization: A Conceptual Framework. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Holm, John
2009 Atlantic features in Asian varieties of Creole Portuguese. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 8(2): 11–22. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hopper, Paul J. and Elizabeth Closs Traugott
2003 Grammaticalization. 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kulikov, Leonid
2001 Causatives. In Martin Haspelmath, Ekkehard König, Wulf Oesterreicher and Wolfgang Raible, eds. Language Typology and Language Universals, vol. 21. Berlin/ New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 886–898.Google Scholar
Lehmann, Christian
1995 [1982] Thoughts on Grammaticalization. Munich: Lincom Europa.Google Scholar
Li, Charles N. and Sandra Thompson
1981 Mandarin Chinese: A Functional Reference Grammar. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Li, Michelle and Stephen Matthews
2016 An outline of Macau Pidgin Portuguese. Journal of Pidgin and Creole Languages 31(1): 141–183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Matthews, Stephen
2006 On Serial Verb Constructions in Cantonese. In Alexandra Y. Aikhenvald and Robert M. W. Dixon, eds. Serial Verb Constructions: A Cross-Linguistic Typology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 69–87.Google Scholar
Mufwene, Salikoko
2001 The Ecology of Language Evolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Ōta, Tatsuo
1987 中国语历史文法. Beijing: Beijing Daxue Chubanshe.Google Scholar
Paul, Waltraud
2008 The serial verb construction in Chinese: A tenacious myth and a Gordian knot. The Linguistic Review 25(3–4): 367–411.Google Scholar
Pinharanda Nunes, Mário Ruí Lima and Alan N. Baxter
2004 Os marcadores pré-verbais no crioulo de base lexical portuguesa de Macau. Papia 131: 31–46.Google Scholar
Pinharanda Nunes, Mário Ruí Lima
2008 Os demonstrativos em Maquista: uma análise morfosintáctica contrastiva. Papia 181: 7–21.Google Scholar
2011 Estudo da expressão morfo-síntactica das categorias de tempo, modo e aspecto em Maquista. PhD dissertation. University of Macau.Google Scholar
2012a Herança cultural e linguística dos macaenses: considerações em torno das suas origens, evolução e continuidade. Fragmentum 35(1): 16–25.Google Scholar
2012b Traces of superstate verb inflection in Makista and other Asian Portuguese Creoles. In Hugo Cardoso, Alan Norman Baxter and Mário Pinharanda Nunes, eds. Ibero-Asian Creoles: Comparative Perspectives. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 289–326. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Rombandaeva, Evdokija I.
1973 Mansijskij (vogul’skij) jazyk. Moscow: Nauka.Google Scholar
Shibatani, Masayoshi and Prashant Pardeshi
2002 The causative continuum. In Masayoshi Shibatani, ed. The Grammar of Causation and Interpersonal Manipulation. Amsterdam/ Philadelphia: John Benjamins. 85–126. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Spronck, Marie-Stephan
2015 Reported Speech in Ungarinyin: Grammar and Social Cognition in a Language of the Kimberley Region, Western Australia. PhD dissertation. Australian National University.Google Scholar
Tomás, Maria Isabel
1988 Makista Creole. Review of Culture 151: 33–46.Google Scholar
2009 The role of women in the cross-pollination process in the Asian-Portuguese varieties. Journal of Portuguese Linguistics 8(2): 49–64. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Xu, Dan
2003 汉语使字句的演变 – 兼谈使字的语法化. In Fuxiang Wu and Bo Hong, eds. 语法化与语法研究. Beijing: The Commercial Press. 224–238.Google Scholar
Cited by

Cited by 2 other publications

Arcodia, Giorgio Francesco
2022. Macanese Negation in Comparative Perspective: Typology and Ecology. Journal of Language Contact 14:3 ► pp. 557 ff. DOI logo
Laub, Robert W.
2021. The effects of language ecology on syntactic structure. In Romance Languages and Linguistic Theory 2017 [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 355], ► pp. 194 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 4 june 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.